(15/09/19) – Commemoration of the Day of Genocide of the Greeks of Asia Minor by the Turkish State

With the PD 304/2001 “Organisation of memory events of 14 th September” (A207) established the 14 to September as a day of national memory of the genocide of the Greeks of Asia Minor by the Turkish state and specified in detail the content and manner of organising events for that day.

This year’s events , according to no. 60631 / 23-08-2019 document by the Minister of the Interior, to be held on Sunday, September 15, 2019 and stipulates:

General Bunting throughout the county from the eight in the morning until sundown 16 th September 2019.

10:30 am: Memorial Mass at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Evangelistria.

11:00 am: Funeral Mass and wreath laying at the Heroes’ Monument in Napier Gardens by local political and military authorities, representatives of political parties, resistance organizations, and any legal person who wishes to commemorate the event.

The following are invited to attend: The regular recipients of regular public holidays and events programs and citizens. The rites of worship are regulated by the Holy Metropolitan of Kefalonia and the order by the Kefalonia Police Directorate.

Mr. Panagis Stathatos, an employee of the PE Cephalonia. Wreath Deposit Declarations at 2671360530-531 by Thursday 12 September 2019.

THE DEPUTY REGISTER

P.E. KEFALONIA AND ITHAKIS

STAVROS P. TRAVLOS

Background information

On September 14 each year, Greek communities around the world commemorate Hellenic Genocide. Hellenes remember the Greeks of Asia Minor who were murdered by the governments of the Young Turks and Mustafa Kemal Pasha.

The destruction of Asia Minor Hellenism began in 1071 when the Byzantine armies were defeated by the Seljuk Turks. In this historical event lies the origin of the Hellenic Holocaust. In 1453, Constantinopoulis fell to the Turks. Constantinos Palaiologos led 5,000 Greek soldiers against 80,000 Ottoman Turkish soldiers. The fall of Constantinopoulis, and the fall of the Empire of Trebizond eight years later extended the Hellenic holocaust to all Hellenic regions.

The Ottoman Empire brought with it massacres, torture, slavery, the kidnapping of boys for the Janissaries, the enslavement of women into the harems, and intolerable political and economic pressure that resulted in the further decimation of Hellenism. For even when Hellenes were not massacred, the destruction of Hellenism occurred with the loss of national identity. Conversions to Islam and Turkification contributed to the nightmare of the loss of independence and national sovereignty.

In May 1919, the armies of a free and independent Greece entered the long suffering city of Smyrna. For a brief time it appeared that the extermination of the Hellenic race had ceased. During the First World War, the Young Turks began to murder the Hellenic populations in Asia Minor, along with the Armenians and the Assyrians.

In September 1922, Smyrna was conquered by the Kemalists and burned. Over 100,000 Greeks and 30,000 Armenians were slaughtered. When the news broke that the Kemalist aggressors would retake Smyrna, it became apparent that the Greeks and the Armenians would not survive.

When the Kemalist-Young Turks murder machines ceased-over 1,500,000 Armenians, 1,000,000 Greeks, and 800,000 Assyrians had lost their lives. The decimation of Hellenism continued when the west supported Kemal’s plan to ethnically cleanse Asia Minor and Eastern Thraki of well over 1,000,000 Hellenes.

Over 1,000,000 Greeks were forced to abandon the land and homes where their ancestors and descendants had lived for over 3,000 years.